Labor Day 2024

Giving God Your Entire Day

Prayer

Introduction

Please open your Bibles to Colossians 3.

History of Labor Day (from U.S. Department of Labor):

Rooted in the 19th century, or 1800s, Labor Day came about when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being.

Before becoming a national holiday it was recognized by these activists and some states such as New York who first introduced a bill to make Labor Day into a holiday, but it was Oregon who would pass the law first, with the first true Labor Day being celebrated in their state on February 21st, 1887, although New Work celebrated the day years before on September 5th, 1883, with the First Labor Day Parade.

After ~30 more states had passed laws making Labor Day a holiday, on June 28th, 1894, Congress would pass an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday.

Hard work is something to celebrate and part of being a Christian is learning that work is not something that should bring us sorrow, but something we should delight in doing as it is a gift from God.

In Genesis 2:5 it tells us that there was no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground, so what did God to next?

First it says he caused a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground (Genesis 2:6).

But then it tells us that the the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7).

Lastly, the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed (Genesis 2:8).

Genesis 2:15 is where work is first introduced, because after God watered the whole surface of the ground, created man, then planted the Garden of Eden, 15 tells us that the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

Work has existed as long as mankind has existed and was the first task God gave mankind, it is a gift, not a burden.

Body

Our work should glorify God and God should be ever much apart of our work day as He is on our Wednesday night and Sunday morning.

In fact, our Scripture reading from today comes from Colossians 3 when Paul is speaking about family relations, beginning with husband-wife, then children-parent, but then we speaks to master-slave relationships.

I want to be careful here, because we cannot ignore the fact that there was slavery during this time in history and while sadly, their is still slavery today in the world, what we can do is take these verses and apply them to the work we do today, and so in a modern context, or as most of our lives are structured, we can look compare the master-slave relationship to that of an supervisor-employee relationship, knowing that while they are much different, concerning hierarchy, or one person ranking over the other, they are similar.

Continuing in a modern context, in Colossians 3 we read this beginning in verse 23, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.”

There are a few things we can take from this:

Whatever we do (work), do it heartily, the Greek word here is psychē, otherwise known as soul, and so we do it from our soul.

If our soul belongs to Christ and Christ, being God, wants our work to bring glory to Him, then wouldn’t we put our best efforts in it. As Christians, our souls not only delight in having a relationship with God, but delight in serving Him, and one way we serve Him is through our work.

If this is true, then wouldn’t it make sense that we put our soul into our work?

It says that we should work as for the Lord rather than for men and why should we? Because we know that from the Lord we will receive the reward of the inheritance.

What does this mean?

For a slave, someone who didn’t own any land, but rather was regarded as property, this was a statement of hope, and even for us, seemingly living in a free country, even if sometimes it don’t feel like it, should give us hope as well. Why hope, you ask?

Because our inheritance comes from Christ and what was it that Christ said?

Quoting the prophet Isaiah, He said this about Himself, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

Whatever you are a slave to, whether that be a man, yourself, your sin, your work, your spouse, your kids, your friends, your family, this country, John 8:36, Jesus own words should offer you hope as it tells us that if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Our inheritance is freedom in Christ, an eternity in Heaven with Him where those people or things that oppress us will not longer affect us, for just as the song “Oh How He Loves” puts it, we are His portion and He is our prize.

For this reason, Paul continues with, “It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.”

We are no longer slaves to sin, to other people, to anything of this world, but as the Word says, now being the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave (1 Corinthians 7:22).

What does it mean to be Christ’s slave? His doulos, also meaning His bondservant or servant as Paul called himself at the beginning of Romans.

I remember back in college, and I think I may have mentioned my Professor before, maybe even this moment before, but I was sitting in Geography 101, like the bare bones, most basic Geography class you could probably find in most High Schools and for some reason my Professor got on the topic of God and my Professor, knowing that I was a Christian, after asking me some questions while I was reading the Bible at the front desk of the Geography department, asked if I could recite the first commandment for the class, despite she knowing she could do it herself, but me, being who I am quickly responded back, “You shall have no other gods beside me”.

Her response shocked me as in front of the class, she said, “now who would want to serve a God like that?”

I remember responding back with, “I would”, but her ignoring my response to then continue on making her point about how Christianity is a lie. To be honest, I wish I would have pushed back more than day and told her why I would serve a God who is jealous, a God who desires my attention, my worship, my time, but instead I stood down.

You see, if there is anyone I would choose to be my master, the one I serve, it would be the one who chose to lay His life down for me, the one who offers me redemption, not based on the fact that He is God, but because He loves me and wants to spend eternity with me.

It is because of the inheritance I have in Christ, the gift He has given me, that I serve Him.

I say that all to say that serving Christ means honoring Him with our life, not only while we are at church, or by ourselves, or with our family, but even we are work as well.

Because the last thing we read here in Colossians 3 is that for he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.

In life, as David Guzik of Enduring Word puts it, there is no guarantee on earth of fairness of treatment, especially in the workforce.

But what God says to those who are being treated unfairly is that for those that do wrong, there will be consequences, because our God is not a God of partiality.

And that is my segue to the point I wanted to make today, that we as Christians often like to give certain times of our day to God, perhaps it’s your morning with morning prayers, or your evening with evening prayers, or maybe your lunch hour with a little reading of God’s Word, but this is not how it is supposed to be, instead, our day should always belong to the Lord, not 10 minutes a day, not even just a few hours of the day like some of you have given this morning, but the entirety of our day, our days, our lives, should belong to God.

Even the hours we spend at work belong to the Lord and we should not only act, but work, and work hard, with Christ in mind as we seek to glorify Him in our jobs.

But it’s hard isn’t it? We either get distracted by locker room talk, where we dishonor God with our words, or our bodies begin hurting so much, causing us to slack off, rather than produce the results our boss would have expected us to.

For times like these have three words that I believe can help you to bounce back from the moments when you choose to ignore God in your work: resistance, resilience, restart, refocus, and repeat.

Let’s use Star Wars to illustrate! Roll the scene! Play I Am Your Father Scene [4k UltraHD] - Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Fight Scene (2/2) (youtube.com).

Point 1: Resistance

Explanation:

Resistance is the act of refraining from doing or having something tempting or unwise.

Illustration:

My hope is that at least some of you know something about Star Wars, for me, it has been a big part of my life for years!

Star Wars is all about the war between the Dark Side and the Light Side as the Dark Side seeks to oppress or defeat the Light Side. Pretty simple real world stuff am I right?

For the Dark Side, the iconic bad guy is Darth Vader, a dude that used to be on the Light Side, but after being influenced by the evil Emperor, he turned to the Dark Side.

For the Light Side, the iconic good guy is Luke Skywalker, of which, if I just spoiled it for you, is Darth Vader’s son! Bum, bum, bum!

The scene that you just watched is from the second movie, the Empire Strikes Back, when Luke first faces Darth Vader mono y mono!

As you saw, Darth Vader was trying to convince his son to turn to the Dark Side as he once did by first stating, “you are beaten, it is useless to resist”.

In that moment, Luke could have considered what he was up against, not only was he on the Death Star, the evil ship circle thing of the Dark Side, but he was up against one of the most powerful people in the galaxy, that being Darth Vader. He saw the power he possess and all of that power could be his.

If his power wouldn’t persuade him to join the Dark Side, Darth Vader had something else that might, “Luke, I am your Father”.

But what does Luke do? After yelling, “NOOOOOOO”, he jumps to safety away in order to escape the temptation.

Temptation is powerful, temptation can lead us down paths that we need not travel and at work it definitely can, it can make us act contrary to how a Christian should and that is where resistance comes in.

Just like Luke, we must resist temptation to go to the dark side, because as Master Yoda, yeah the green little dude that could whoop any of us in a fight even though he’s like 900 years old, warned him, “If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.”

That’s why we must do everything we can to fight it, but sometimes it’s hard, even Luke would find this out, as we saw at the end, with the light saber being a Jedi’s tool to fight, Darth Vader had cut off his hand!

But resilience would be key for Luke to continue in his fight against the Dark Side.

Point 2: Resilience

Explanation:

Resilience is capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

Illustration:

At the end of Empire Strikes Back, the end of the movie we watched a scene from, Luke gets a robotic hand so that he could wield his light saber once again!

Luke would not allow what happened during his and his father’s first fight to bring him down.

He now had a job to do, a mission where he would bring his father to the light.

In order to do this, as we find out in the next movie, The Return of the Jedi, Luke goes to the Death Star only to surrender to the Emperor so that he could get close to his dad, but after a conversation with his father, he is unable to turn him to the Light Side.

This leads to a very important moment for Luke where he allows his anger to get the best of him.

After the Emperor threatens to hurt Luke’s friends and Darth Vader threatens to hurt Luke’s sister, he lashes out with rage trying to kill the Empower, which would have for sure been a catalyst for him to turn to the Dark Side as he would have let his anger control him, as his anger had led to aggression, both tools of the Dark Side, but it is his father who stops him.

And instead, he fights his father which leads to his father’s hand getting cut off, but before killing his father, Luke would take a breath to clear his mind throwing his light saber to the ground.

In that moment, Luke could have became exactly like his father, who had came to the Dark Side due to his anger and aggression many years before, but Luke knew in that moment, this was a perfect time for a restart, he could forget his anger, end his aggression, and save his father.

Resilience is a key component of our Christian life as we will fall short many times, but it is important that we stand back up and continue to push forward.

Trust me when I tell you this, there will come times when you cave to the temptation, whether that be at work, or at home, or when your with your friends, but what’s important is how you bounce back from falling short, realizing that it starts with repentance and is followed by a restart.

Point 3: Restart

Explanation:

Restart means to start again.

Illustration:

After Luke decides to spare his father, the Emperor arrives and tries to kill Luke.

He uses lightening to try to kill him, yes, lightening that flows from his hands, have a picture of that for you, but as his father watches, he just can’t allow his son to die.

After years of Darth Vader being on the Dark Side, seeing his son hurt in front of him causes him to kill the Emperor, saving his sons life, but in the meantime, the Emperor would deliver a death blow to Darth Vader before he would fall to his death.

This could lead to one of my favorite scenes of the series where after Luke removed his father’s mask, he father would say, “now go, my son, leave me”, Luke would respond with “no your coming with me, i’ll not leave you here, I’ve got to save you” and his father looks at him telling him, “you already have” where he would die in his hands.

While our restart won’t be as dramatic as Luke decided to spare his father’s life while fighting him on a ship in the middle of space or like Darth Vader’s decision to save his son by killing the most evil bad guy in the galaxy, a restart is always important as it allows you to move past falling short and causes you to refocus on your future, a future where you can decide to be the person you want to be.

Point 4: Refocus

Explanation:

Refocus means to adjust the focus of.

Illustration:

After Luke making the decision not to allow his anger to force him to kill his father, allowing for a restart, leading unfortunately to the death of his father, he would do exactly as his dad had asked him, he would go take his father’s body and return to his friends and family, refocusing on the victory they had by destroying the Death Star.

A celebration would occur where all of his companions would now be able to live in peace and with the knowledge that his father had died belonging once again to the Light Side, he could look forward to the future.

We can do the same, say we can’t resist and fall into temptation at work or in life, we can be resilient, we can get back up to make our way out of that valley, and we can restart by climbing that mountain, refocusing on the thing at the top, and for us as Christians, that’s God.

Trust me when I say this, this is not a one time occurrence, this will need to be repeated.

Point 5: Repeat

Explanation:

Repeat means to do something again; continue to do something.

Illustration:

While many years from their celebration would occur between the Return of the Jedi and the next Star Wars movie, Luke would one day face evil again and while he wouldn’t be the main character, this process would repeat itself for a new set of characters.

Conclusion

Summation

Resistance. Resilience. Restart. Refocus. Repeat.

These five words for the Christian can be used in their life as they continue to grow into mature Christians. Each day is about waking up, standing up on our own two feet and being the Christian Christ has called us to be no matter how much we are beaten down, broken, and tired.

Our entire day, our entire lives belong to Him who has offered redemption through the blood of His Son and we can’t give him our entire lives if whether it’s those hours we spend at work, or those hours we spend at home are spent with our mind not focused on him, so it is important in whatever we do, we do for the Lord rather than for men.

Altar Call